2008 Domaine Comte Senard Corton Clos des Meix Monopole Grand Cru

(90 Points   ------   Burghound)

This is also earthy and rather rustic but offers another step up in aromatic complexity. There is a bit of reduction on the nose so be sure to decant it if you're going to try one young. The medium full-bodied flavors are attractively rich and while firm, they are by no means chewy or unduly aggressive. This should be capable of at least a decade of improvement and easily last for another. (A large 2 ha monopole of the Domaine with 80% of the vines planted in '45 and the rest in '75 - even though the vines here are mature, Senard doesn't like the plant material that was used and may begin replacing certain sections with better stock). Philippe Senard has decided to move his domaine to bio farming principles though he candidly points out that "if necessary, we'll supplement our treatments with conventional applications. I am convinced that most of the time the natural contact products that are available can work but if they don't, I'm not prepared to lose an entire harvest. We have also completely eliminated herbicides and insecticides. We now only plow or hoe to keep the weeds under control. As to the 2008 vintage, it was tricky as you could obtain good ripeness levels but only if you waited to pick. We didn't even begin until the 30th of September and were rewarded with good sugars and solid phenolic ripeness levels. The other side of it though is that we threw out more grapes due to the additional rot pressure from more time on the vine...     Review Date: 04/2010